Get real on Ned shooting

Ned Kelly.

Another big screen adaption of the legend of Ned Kelly will soon enter production, but one local MP wants the production to stay true to its local origins.

State Member for Euroa Steph Ryan urged producers of the upcoming film to stay historically accurate with the film’s locations and film around the Euroa shire.

In State Parliament on Thursday the Nationals MP announced that she had written to Screen Australia to invite producers of the upcoming film to consider shooting in the region.

According to reports film scouts are currently assessing locations around the Hepburn shire area, a fair distance from the actual location of historical events.

Ms Ryan told The News that areas across that producers should take a serious look at the real Kelly Country before cameras start rolling on a planned 2018 shoot.

‘‘Now I’ll admit that I don’t know the requirements of shooting a movie, but the scenery and locations we have through Strathbogie Ranges and throughout north east Victoria would be fantastic locations,’’ Ms Ryan said.

‘‘And apart from the fact that our landscapes are quite beautiful and dramatic I think these locations would give it a much stronger tie to the story — this is where the Kellys roamed.’’

The film will be the latest adaption of the Ned Kelly story, which had already been adapted to the silver screen many times.

The late Heath Ledger starred as the infamous outlaw in the last major adaption, Ned Kelly, which hit theatres back in 2003.

This version will star Russell Crowe and Echuca’s Travis Fimmel with English actor George Mackay as Ned.

It will be based on Peter Carey’s fictionalised historical novel True History of the Kelly Gang, which was first published in 2000.

‘‘I am a bit disappointed that they are basing it on the Peter Carey novel, which is very fictionalised,’’ Ms Ryan said.

She would have preferred them to have used J.J. Kenneally’s 1920s book The Inner History of the Kelly Gang, but understood why filmmakers would be attracted to Carey’s dramatised novel.

The Euroa electorate contains many of the famous locations throughout the tragic Kelly Gang story, from Kilmore to Glenrowan.

A bank at Euroa was robbed by the Kelly Gang, and the small town of Avenel was the home of Ned Kelly during his younger years.

‘‘Everywhere you go around here you are stepping on Kelly Country,’’ she said.

‘‘And you couldn’t buy the kind of exposure that a major film like that would bring to our region.’’

She has yet to receive a response, but with a lifelong interest in the story of the Kelly Gang, she was looking forward to seeing the new adaption on the big screen.

‘‘Fundamentally it was the story of the underdog fighting the establishment,’’ she said.